


Helpless

by martianwahtney



Series: prompts [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Fluff, Gen, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7650697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martianwahtney/pseuds/martianwahtney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where JARVIS is a good bro and Tony and Bucky are pining nerds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless

     The first time Bucky met Tony the genius was talking, just talking, which wouldn't have been memorable at all if Tony hadn't been alone in the kitchen at 2 in the morning. 

     “And let's toss the schematics for the arrows, I have a new idea- is it my birthday?”

     Bucky was mildly surprised to see Tony’s dark brown gaze alight with interest, and flicking from Bucky’s face to his metal arm. 

     “ _ Fortunately, no sir,” _

     Bucky’s head snapped to the ceiling where he assumed the disembodied British voice originated from.

     “Fortunately, J?” Tony’s eyes still twinkled. 

     “ _ Indeed sir, we don't need a repeat of your last birthday party, _ ”

     “I was  _ dying _ !”

     “And who asked you anyway?”

     “ _ You did, sir,” _

     “Sass, remind me to reprogram you one of these days,”

     “ _ When shall I set the reminder? _ ”

     “Surprise me,”

     “ _ I look forward to it, _ ”

     Tony waved his hand at the ceiling and his brilliant gaze locked on Bucky once more. 

     “You must be Sergeant Barnes,”

     “Bucky,”

     “What was that?” Bucky gestured to the ceiling. 

     “That was JARVIS,”

     “JARVIS,” Bucky repeated. 

\--

     Bucky typed in the passcode to Tony’s lab and stepped in. The other man was running his mouth, probably to JARVIS. Bucky was astounded that the genius was always talking. Always. He only ever understood maybe every third word that flew out of Tony’s mouth, but he would continue to listen for the enthusiasm in the engineer's voice alone. 

     “ _ Sir _ ,” JARVIS interrupted Tony smoothly.

     Tony turned to see what JARVIS wanted. 

     “Bucky!”

     Tony was wearing a dark blue sweater, sleeves pushed up on his forearms, and Bucky really didn't think it was fair that Tony looked that good in that shirt. 

     “Uh… my arm ain’t feelin’ right,” Bucky said.

     “Let’s have a look at it then,”

     Bucky was more than happy to let Tony babble on about his different projects while he worked. It helped him concentrated on something else other than the dull, aching pain that came whenever someone tried to work on his arm.

     “Alright, how does that feel?” Tony pushed away from Bucky as he spoke.

     Bucky rotated his arm a few times and smiled softly.

     “Better,” he said.

     Tony smiled a thousand watt grin.

     “Thanks,”

     “Not a problem, need anything else?”

     Bucky’s eyes caught on the holographic specs of the Iron Man suit, there was a question itching in his mind that he’d wanted to ask Tony since they met.

     “What was it like up there? Deep space?”

     From somewhere behind Tony, there was the sound of glass breaking. Tony jerked his head around to see what had happened.

     He didn’t see how rigid Tony went.

     “Dum-E,” but there was something wrong with his voice, he sounded strained.

     “ _ Sergeant Barnes, I believe Captain Rogers is looking for you _ ,” JARVIS stated smoothly.

     “Right, thanks again Tony!” Bucky called over his shoulder as he exited the lab, he didn’t hear the engineer’s response before the lab doors hissed closed.

\--

     “J-just talk J,”

     His thoughts were too jumbled, they were racing by too fast for him to latch on to. There was nothing but the fear that flooded his body. He closed his eyes and just for a second he saw nothing, then stars. An alien ship. Chitauri. The terrifying nothingness that surrounded him as his eyes slipped closed and his breath failed him. 

     His eyes snapped open, his breaths were shallow gasps. He was in his lab. JARVIS was rattling off some sort of algorithm. Tony tilted his head back against the glass wall and forced himself to listen to each syllable that JARVIS said, at first it all meant nothing to Tony, with his jumbled mind it was hard to put each syllable together to form a word, then put those words together to form a sentence. But when he calmed the words JARVIS was saying began to make sense. For that second the world felt ok. He could endure. 

\--

     “ _ Sergeant Barnes, I must ask you to cease questioning the sir about any of the events of the battle of New York, _ ”

     JARVIS spoke so suddenly and so close that Bucky half expected the AI to take a corporeal form. Bucky’s head jerked up, strands of hair fell into his face at the movement. 

     “What?”

     “ _ The sir does not wish to discuss the events of the battle, _ ”

     “Why hasn't Tony said anything?” Bucky questioned.

     There was a pause from the AI, like JARVIS was nervous about answering or divulging too much information about Tony. 

     “ _ The sir has been under quite a bit of stress, discussing the battle does not help, _ ” JARVIS stated. 

     “Ok,” Bucky said slowly. 

\--

     “How’s that feeling J?”

     “ _ Fine, sir. Thank you, _ ”

     “You sure? Nothing feels too restricted?” Tony questioned. 

     “ _ Everything seems fine, the coding is holding up well under my new responsibilities, _ ” JARVIS responded.

     “Good, good, let me know if something feels sticky,”

     “ _ As always, sir, _ ”

     Tony swiveled around to face Bucky. 

     “Sorry, ah arm right?”

     “Yea,” Bucky said quietly. 

     Tony wheeled his chair toward Bucky to get a better look at the metal arm. There was a slight crease on the genius’ forehead. 

     “JARVIS ok?”

     “He's fine, just had to update his code, can't let myself get distracted or he wouldn't be functioning properly and what would I- we do without him?” Tony flashed Bucky a breathtaking smile. 

     “ _ More than you think, sir, _ ”

     “Was that a compliment? Mark it down in the calendar!”

     “ _ If you insist, _ ”

     “Sass already you must be in a good mood, now Bucky, what doesn’t feel right?” Tony questioned.

     “There’s some lag,” Bucky said.

     “Let’s have a looksie shall we?”

     Tony wasn’t entirely sure if he liked being in such close proximity of Bucky, or if he hate it. The former assassin was breathtakingly gorgeous and sometimes, only sometimes, it impaired Tony’s thinking process. Tony could blame it on a number of things like Bucky’s dark hair and blue eyes, his smile, his jawline with the fucking stubble, the absolute worst was when Bucky looked up at him through his eyelashes and gave a shy smile.

     Tony was pretty much fucked.

\--

     “ _ Sir, it seems your panic attacks haven’t got any better, I would suggest seeing someone about it, _ ” JARVIS stated.

     “Wow J, tell me how you really feel?” Tony muttered, he dragged his hands down his face and tried to get his erratic heartbeat back in order.

     “ _ Sir _ ,”

     Tony looked up at the ceiling, JARVIS wasn’t messing around with this one.

     “I’m fine, J, no need to worry,” Tony insisted.

     “ _ Sir, _ ” JARVIS attempted to protest.

     “Fine,” Tony repeated to himself. 

     JARVIS kept up a stony and irritated silence for the rest of the day, only answering Tony when directly asked, and with none of his usual sass. It took approximately three seconds for Tony to figure out his AI was pissed, but he didn’t say anything about it for hours.

     “Alright J, enough with the pissy silence!” 

     “ _ Have you rethought what I asked? _ ”

     “J… no one’s going to want to listen to the poor little rich boy,” Tony said with a slight ache in his chest.

     “ _ Sir, as I have said 153 times before, you are an integral part of the Avengers _ ,” JARVIS sounded slightly exasperated. 

     Tony scoffed out a laugh and shook his head.

     “Pull up the schematics for the widow’s bite,”

     “ _ Sir _ ,” but JARVIS pulled them up anyway.

\--

     Tony should have realized what his AI had done when suddenly all the Avengers felt like bothering him at random parts of the day. 

     Natasha dragged him out to spar with her. After a few sessions Tony grudgingly admitted that it was probably a good idea, because while he could hold his own well enough outside the suit, having more training wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

     Clint usually hauled him out to watch their favorite soap opera in the dead of the night where no one could tease them about it.

     Bruce dragged him out daily, to eat dinner with the rest of the team. Tony really couldn’t find complaint in that.

     Steve, without fail, forced him to come to movie night. The super soldier didn’t care if Tony was in the middle of a fucking break through, he threatened to carry the genius out of the lab, a threat that he had once followed through on. 

     Bucky, however, never tried to pull Tony from the lab. Instead, he would sit on Tony’s torn up couch and read a massive pile of books. Most days they sat in silence, only talking if Bucky wanted clarification on something he’d just read, or it Tony wanted his opinion on a new toy he was working on. 

     Tony found he didn’t mind the constant disruptions, because of them, he was sleeping better, eating at least one full meal a day, bonding with his team mates, and while he still had anxiety attacks about the battle, they didn’t seem quite as bad. Or at least to Tony they didn’t, but with JARVIS’s worrying about them Tony could safely assume they were just as bad as always. Tony considered himself lucky that Rhodey wasn’t in the tower, if there ever was a mother hen-

     “JARVIS,” Tony spoke so suddenly that Bucky looked up from his book.

     “ _ Sir _ ?” 

     “When’s the last time you were pissed at me?”

     “ _ A month ago _ ,” JARVIS replied.

     “And when did the team start bothering me?”

     There was a slight hesitation from JARVIS before he responded.

     “ _ About a month ago _ ,” 

     “So… the same time then?”

     “ _ An odd coincidence, I assure you _ ,” 

     Tony swiveled around to look at Bucky.

     “What did he say to you?”

     “Just that we ought start doin’ some team building shit- Stevie really liked the idea,” Bucky gave a gentle shrug like it was no big deal.

     “And you all willingly dragged  _ me  _ into it?” Tony questioned.

     “No one was forcin’ us to, you’re part of the team, Tony,”

     Bucky shifted forward on the couch, elbows on his knees, blue eyes locked on to Tony’s.

     “‘Sides, you always look fuckin’ gorgeous in your natural habitat,”

     Tony could only gape at Bucky, unable to produce any kind of coherent thought or sound. At Tony’s stunned silence Bucky smirked, he winked at Tony, pushed himself to his feet, and walked out of the lab.

     “JARVIS,” Tony found his voice.

     “ _ Sir? _ ”

     “Was he just hitting on me?”

     “ _ It would seem so _ ,”

**Author's Note:**

> a belated birthday gift for a dear friend of mine!  
> can be found on my blog  
> [here](http://www.anthonystarhk.tumblr.com)


End file.
